Carlyle to focus on Turkey and Saudi Arabia
Carlyle Group has installed a leadership pairing at its Middle East and north African arm as the private equity group reframes its investment strategy, focusing on the region’s main growth markets in Turkey and the Gulf.
Carlyle has promoted Can Deldag and Firas Nasir to co-heads of its regional franchise, in a move that is set to be unveiled on Monday, said people close to the US buy-out house.
The leadership change emphasises Carlyle’s focus on Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the two countries where it has struck all its deals since setting up a regional $500m fund in 2009.
Turkey in particular is attracting foreign investment capital while many north African economies are being shunned by investors, amid a string of political upheavals in the region.
Mr Deldag heads Carlyle’s Turkish deal team based in Istanbul, while Mr Nasir operates from Dubai and leads investments in the six countries of the Gulf Co-operation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia.
The management pairing replaces Walid Musallam, who set up the private equity group’s regional team more than five years ago but stepped down last week.
Mr Musallam, who lives in Beirut, closed down Carlyle’s Egypt office last year amid the political turmoil sparked by the Aran uprisings , concentrating the buy-out group’s regional operations on its Istanbul and Dubai offices.
“We will continue to focus our investments on the regions where we see the most opportunities for value creation,” Mr Deldag told the Financial Times.
Although north Africa has failed to live up to expectations, Mr Nasir said that Carlyle would continue to look for deals in the area. “We continue to monitor opportunities in north Africa and support our portfolio companies there. For example, Alamar Foods has Domino’s Pizza restaurants in Morocco and Egypt which are performing very well.”
(source: www.ft.com)
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